CHAN 3099 BOOK.Qxd 6/4/07 12:43 Pm Page 2 Russell Duncan Russell
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Chan 3099 Book Cover.qxd 6/4/07 12:41 pm Page 1 GREAT OPERATIC ARIAS CHAN 3099 CHANDOS O PERA IN ENGLISH PETER MOORES FOUNDATION CHAN 3099 BOOK.qxd 6/4/07 12:43 pm Page 2 Russell Duncan Russell Great Operatic Arias with Yvonne Kenny Session photo: Yvonne Kenny 3 CHAN 3099 BOOK.qxd 6/4/07 12:43 pm Page 4 Time Page Time Page George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Rinaldo from Così fan tutte Armida’s Aria (Ah! crudel) Fiordiligi and Ferrando’s Duet (Fra gli amplessi) 1 ‘Ah! Cruel man’ 5:22 [p. 46] 5 ‘By tomorrow we’ll be together’ 6:17 [p. 48] with Eligio Quinteiro theorbo and Catherine Edwards harpsichord with Bruce Ford tenor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Franz Lehár (1870–1948) from The Marriage of Figaro from The Merry Widow Letter Duet (Che soave zefiretto) Vilia Song 2 ‘Well, what did you tell him?’ – 6 ‘A Vilia who liv’d by a cool forest glade’ 5:32 [p. 50] ‘How delightful ’tis to wander’ 3:33 [p. 46] with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, James A. Ellis arranger/mandolin and with Rebecca Evans soprano Nigel Woodhouse mandolin from Così fan tutte (All Women are like That) Emmerich Kálmán (1882–1953) Fiordiligi’s Recitative and Rondo (Per pietà) from The Gypsy Princess 3 ‘He’s left me…’ – Sylva and Edwin’s Duet (Weiß du es nicht?) ‘Ah, forgive, my love, forgive me’ 8:47 [p. 47] 7 ‘Festive laughter, celebration’ – ‘Where are they now?’ 6:37 [p. 50] Richard Strauss (1864–1949) with Bruce Ford tenor from Arabella Arabella and Zdenka’s Duet (Aber der richtige) Richard Strauss 4 ‘He’s not the one who is right for me’ 6:36 [p. 48] from Capriccio with Rebecca Evans soprano Closing Scene 8 ‘Where is my brother?’ 21:58 [p. 52] with Roderick Williams baritone and Timothy Jones horn 4 5 CHAN 3099 BOOK.qxd 6/4/07 12:43 pm Page 6 Time Page George Gershwin (1898–1937) Kiran Chang from The Show Is On ‘By Strauss’ 9 ‘Away with the music of Broadway!’ 2:39 [p. 54] Ivor Novello (1893–1951) from King’s Rhapsody Princess Cristiane’s Song 10 ‘Some day my heart will awake’ 2:47 [p. 54] TT 70:14 Yvonne Kenny soprano London Symphony Orchestra Clio Gould leader Martin Fitzpatrick assistant conductor Richard Hickox Yvonne Kenny as the Countess in Opera Australia’s production of Strauss’s Capriccio 6 7 CHAN 3099 BOOK.qxd 6/4/07 12:43 pm Page 8 Beaumarchais’ Barber, ‘what cannot be spoken service, and return disguised as Albanians. The Great Operatic Arias nowadays will be sung’, and Mozart’s Figaro maid, who has been bribed by Alfonso but went ahead, though da Ponte did tone down doesn’t recognise the men, encourages her The fortunes of Handel’s dramatic works Lorenzo da Ponte was a rakish figure who some of the more subversive elements. employers to look favourably on the new underwent a remarkable revival in the second was employed as poet to the court theatre in Countess Almaviva and her maid, Susanna, suitors. The first to succumb is Dorabella; half of the twentieth century. Never to be Vienna. Dismissed in the year of Mozart’s are planning to put a stop to the Count’s Fiordiligi, the part written for Adriana forgotten is the pioneering work of the Handel death, he later found a position as poet to the amorous pursuits by means of a trick. Ferrarese, is made of sterner stuff, and in ‘He’s Opera Society, Kent Opera, and the Unicorn new King’s Theatre, Haymarket (the theatre Almaviva is to meet Susanna in the garden left me… Ah, forgive, my love’ (track 3 ) she Theatre at Abingdon. This was followed in the that Handel knew having burned down). He that night; but the rendezvous will be kept by reproaches herself for being tempted, and begs 1980s and 1990s by stagings of his operas and fled to the United States to escape his creditors his own wife. In ‘How delightful ’tis to her absent lover for forgiveness. The aria is oratorios at English National Opera, at Covent and became a grocer, a bookseller, and wander’ (track 2 ), Susanna writes to the notable for its prominent horn parts: Garden and at Glyndebourne, several of which Professor of Italian Literature at Columbia erring husband at the Countess’s dictation. Beethoven disapproved of the opera’s moral saw Yvonne Kenny in a starring role. College, dying in New York at the age of The voices alternate, then combine in tone but was happy enough to follow suit Opening with a run of fifteen performances eighty-nine. sensuous thirds, with a commentary provided, when composing Leonore’s great soliloquy in in early 1711, Rinaldo was the first Italian The Marriage of Figaro (1786) was the first as in Rinaldo, by oboe and bassoon. Fidelio. opera to be written expressly for the London of da Ponte’s collaborations with Mozart, the Così fan tutte (1790) means ‘All women Shortly afterwards, Fiordiligi vows to follow stage. Performed at the Queen’s Theatre, others being Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. behave like that’ (da Ponte preferred his the officers onto the field of battle, taking Haymarket (roughly on the site of Her It was based on the play by Pierre-Augustin alternative title, which in English is the more Dorabella with her. They will kit themselves Majesty’s Theatre), it is set at the time of the Caron de Beaumarchais, who wrote it as a elegant ‘The school for lovers’). Don Alfonso, out in their lovers’ spare uniforms. (What were First Crusade, which culminated in the sequel to The Barber of Seville. Beaumarchais, a cynical old bachelor, bets his two young uniforms doing in the girls’ house, one capture of Jerusalem in 1099. Armida, a character as colourful as da Ponte, had got friends that, provided they obey his orders to wonders?) ‘By tomorrow we'll be together’ sorceress and Queen of Damascus, is in love into trouble in Paris for his depictions of the the letter, he can make each of their girl- (track 5 ), she sings; but she is overheard by with Rinaldo, one of the Christian knights. lower orders outwitting their aristocratic friends transfer her affections to the other Ferrando, whose blandishments she was earlier She assumes the form of his betrothed, but masters. The Barber had been performed in man. The setting is Naples, but the girls are trying to resist, and soon they are in each fails to seduce him. After his rapid departure, Vienna in the setting by Paisiello, which from Ferrara: da Ponte’s little joke, as one of other’s arms. All is resolved by the men re- she veers from pleading to threatening and remained a repertory work until it was blown the singers, known as La Ferrarese, was his entering as their old selves. Don Alfonso has back again in ‘Ah! Cruel man’ (track 1 ). out of the water by Rossini, but Figaro, as a mistress. won his bet and the original partnerships are Oboe and bassoon eloquently underscore her play, was banned. However, as a contemporary The young men leave their sweethearts, resumed, each of the four young people now passion. reviewer wrote, slightly misquoting pretending to be called away on military sadder and wiser. 8 9 CHAN 3099 BOOK.qxd 6/4/07 12:43 pm Page 10 ‘The Mozart of the Champs-Elysées’ was widowed Hanna Glawari should not be lost to who had starred there in Lehár’s last work, actual collaboration being over an adaptation Rossini’s assessment of Offenbach, whose his country. Giuditta; but on the arrival of the Nazis of his stage play, Elektra. Arabella (1933) was operettas were all the rage in Paris during the It is essential, therefore, that Hanna should Kálmán fled via Paris and London to the USA the last, but Hofmannsthal never saw the 1850s and 1860s. They were popular in marry someone from Pontevedro; and the and the staging never took place. result: he died suddenly in 1929, leaving Vienna, too, which led to the creation of Baron’s candidate is Count Danilo The Gypsy Princess turns on the love Acts II and III in draft, and without having home-grown products by Suppé, Millöcker Danilovitch, the secretary to the Pontevedrin between Sylva Varescu and Edwin, the son of read the congratulatory telegram that Strauss and, especially, Johann Strauss the younger. By legation. Danilo, a former lover of Hanna’s, Prince von und zu Lippert-Weylersheim. The had sent him on receiving the final version of the end of the century their star was waning, affects to prefer the company of the girls from Prince is resolutely opposed to his son’s Act I. but Viennese operetta received a shot in the Maxim’s; but eventually he admits his love for marrying Sylva, a mere cabaret singer, but Arabella is also set in Vienna – in the 1860s, arm with the advent of Franz Lehár and Hanna, and all ends happily. ‘A Vilia who liv’d finally relents when it is revealed that his own this time – and Strauss again features the waltz. Emmerich Kálmán. In an amusing parallel by a cool forest glade’ (track 6 ), about a wife, a widowed countess when he married The opera has suffered from being with Offenbach, who was no Frenchman, wood-nymph who abandons a young man her, had herself been a singer. In the middle unfavourably compared with Der Rosenkavalier: neither composer was from Austria: both were after a night of love, is sung by Hanna at a act, which takes place at the Lippert- if it lacks the bitter-sweet attraction of the born in Hungary, Kálmán to Hungarian party in the garden of her house.